Nasrallah: Syrian Rebels Won't Win

Al-Qaeda has been tricked into fighting in Syria, claims Hizbullah chief Hassan Nasrallah.

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Elad Benari, 17/12/12 05:13

Nasrallah

AFP/File

The head of the Hizbullah terror group, Hassan Nasrallah, warned Al-Qaeda on Sunday that it had been tricked into fighting in Syria, and said that the rebellion would not be able to topple the regime of President Bashar al-Assad militarily, AFP reported.

"The Americans, Europeans and some governments in the Arab and Muslim world have set a trap for you in Syria," Nasrallah said, according to the report.

"They have opened the entire country for you to congregate there from all corners of the world and kill one another," he said, in a speech broadcast during a university graduation ceremony in the southern suburbs of Beirut.

"And you are complicit in this trick," Nasrallah added.

His comments came amid increased debate over the rise of jihadist terrorist groups in Syria, notably the Al-Nusra Front, which was blacklisted as a terrorist organisation by Washington last week for its alleged links to Al-Qaeda in Iraq. The group has rejected a coalition of Syrian opposition groups and has expressed its desire to form an Islamic state in Syria.

"If we assume that these groups which are affiliated to Al-Qaeda and its ideology are able to achieve a breakthrough on the ground one day, then they will be the first to pay the price in Syria as they have in other countries," Nasrallah said, according to AFP.

The Hizbullah leader, whose group is a longstanding Assad ally, said that the situation in Syria "is becoming increasingly complex" and added, "The opposition believes they will be able to resolve the battle militarily, which is very, very, very suspect."

Nasrallah said the conflict pitched a regime "defending its existence out of conviction with the majority of the Syrian people behind it" against an "armed opposition working to topple the regime with a segment of the population in support".

He said he feared the conflict would be a protracted one, "as long as the armed opposition and its regional and international backers refuse any dialogue with the regime."

In July, as the ongoing civil war in Syria continued, Nasrallah's terror group publicly offered to place itself at Assad’s disposal.

Several months ago a soldier from the Free Syrian Army told The Independent newspaper, published in the UK, that Hizbullah's Shi'ite Muslim terrorists are full military allies of the Syrian army and that "everyone knows they have fighters there."